As a result of people connecting during a workshop or roundtable, the collective mind is created. We are aware of this phenomenon known as the “wisdom of the crowd.” If people unite, then an additional force emerges and something new that exceeds their capabilities is born between them. Each possesses mediocre intelligence and capabilities and makes mistakes answering questions. However, when they are discussing it all together, listening to others’ opinions and complementing each other, the average response will be correct or very close to the correct one.

Each member makes a mistake in a different direction and, thus, on average, the answer is correct. However, it’s not only the statistical law of large numbers but also about the emotional aspect. When people unite and want to solve a problem together, they get a special sense. It is not just the average response. Since they have tried to find a solution together, a special addition emerges.

We do not simply ask for an answer from everyone individually as if in a statistical survey, but we bring them together and want to achieve one common result. Then they do not make mistakes. This is the consequence of connection, not just an answer resulting from averaging when one mistake compensates another.

When people connect, a special additional force emerges that propels us to the next level. All of us are on the bottom step; ten on the lower degree are equal to one on the higher degree, in the same way as the entire still level is equal to one plant, and all the plants to one animal, and all the animals to one human being by his power and essence.

It is not a simple equation. The force of the Creator must be added to it because it is required to switch us from the still level, where all the still elements are joined together to the vegetative level to become one plant. However, we should know that this force is always at our disposal. The Upper Light always shines. Once we connect, the Upper Light will instantly and automatically begin to work on us and raise us to the next degree.

Therefore, it is said that the entire still level is equivalent to one plant. The Upper Light is automatically included in this formula. We seemingly know a priori that the Upper Light will act and raise them.

The common answer is obtained not as the average of all the responses. By conducting a workshop and forming a circle, we must come to a common decision, a definition that will be at the center of the circle. We do not need ten separate opinions. That will produce nothing. It will just complicate things as mere philosophizing: One said this and another said that. This is analysis. However, we need synthesis, the general factor belonging to the upper degree!

We do not yet know how to use workshops properly. The workshop is a spiritual vessel, a tool for attaining the end of correction. As a result, we must rise to the level of the gathering of Rabbi Shimon’s group. We just call it by such a mundane word “workshop,” but it implies a real spiritual connection. Workshops should be changed. We will work on this. It cannot just be taught. This skill comes gradually, and the pressure from outside helps in this.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Our global group that brought people aspiring to the Creator (Isra-El) together reaches out to the general public and disseminates integral education, meaning the method of connection. Connection is the cure for all problems because the only thing we need to do to correct the world is to correct our shattering.

In this way, the three degrees are connected: the public, the group, the Creator. Our task is to make people aware that connection will make our lives better. But why do we disseminate? We do so because the degrees are arranged in such a way that without this we cannot ascend.

The Kabbalists of the past generations had a very strong spiritual gene, Reshimo, and were willing to devote their whole lives to the spiritual goal, ignoring everything else. But we are not capable of this, we have such heavy egoism that we cannot rise in this way. We do not have such a great desire to adhere to the upper one, that is, to realize our soul. Therefore, in our generation, we should advance to correction with the whole world.

We need the whole world even to help ourselves. Our degree does not have enough desire to rise to the corrected state. We need the whole immense world to add its cry to our prayer, and that will be enough to raise and correct everyone. That’s why it’s so necessary to disseminate.

We need to connect the complaint of the entire world to our prayer and raise it to the upper one. This is the formula that relates the three degrees: the public, us, and the Creator. This is the internal essence of dissemination.

Our task is to explain to people that we can draw fulfillment from connection, all the power, all the success; it’s a wonderful means! And we have the ability to lead to this internal connection and not just create a commune or a kibbutz. Unity is the law of integral nature, and we have the ability to establish a successful relationship that benefits all the participants.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/27/13, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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When addressing a wide audience, what we give is not speculation but facts about the integral world, about a single system, which is being eaten away by the cancerous tumor of egoism. The world, as well as the living body, needs balance, which is a sign of health and fulfilling life.

Listeners should be turned into partners working on the material being taught. We do not oppose their beliefs but involve them initially to a rethinking about the world. Together with them, we see the world and understand how we live and function. And then of course, we understand that our future existence can be built only on equilibrium and the one who upsets balance, destroys and undermines the general system, until he dies, like cancer killing the body or humanity that is ruining nature.

People do not see how they could live differently and we agree with them that the exit is nowhere in sight. And yet we point them at the ideal, universal law of equilibrium because the world is headed for disaster.

In fact, we start talking not about unity but about the current situation: Today we live in a “bubble,” in some “field,” subject to the laws of equilibrium. And we do not match them. From generation to generation, we are becoming greater egoists and see this inevitable trend even in our own children, and that is why our problems are becoming more acute like during the development of metastasizing cancer.

In the end, we state the facts, nothing more. And if these facts can be revealed a little, in small doses, people will internalize them and agree with us.

This is the first stage of the explanation: I seemingly accompany my listeners on the path of the initial knowledge and awareness, and we become more united. Together, we look at the world and the crisis that it is experiencing in all areas.

Indeed, humanity is in a tragic situation, but still we do not see it yet. Even in an individual family it is not easy to establish relations that have been soured, and on a global scale, no one even dreams of unraveling the tangle of all of humanity. Although ideally, the world needs unity, today we see more clearly that unity is a dream of romantics or fools.

It is all correct because by nature we are opposite to the outer Nature, and thus in principle, are doomed to extinction. In fact, behind the illusion of life, we are approaching death second by second.

So perhaps, we should agree with it and quietly live our days? Should we impose a new philosophy in society, a new view of what is happening and put up with this? Even today, people do not want to have children, so let our generation become the last on earth?

Here, we take people to the “loophole,” to the unused opportunity. A special force acts in external integral Nature, and if we are together, the group somehow becomes similar to it, then something from Nature—its integral potential—will be manifested in this group. And then our group becomes connected with nature as one. Everything outside and inside seems to be filled with integral force.

After all, all ills, all problems, are ultimately caused by a huge difference (Δ) between us and Nature. And accordingly, if we eliminate this difference, we will not simply become liberated but will become eternal and perfect like all of Nature. Even physicists confirm that this is possible. And the key is that the group, according to its properties (form 1), would be consistent with Nature (form 2). By drawing closer to each other, we become like it.

How can we make the first form equal to the second? How can we get close?

“Very simply, let’s try, organize a workshop, and you will feel this.” The main thing is the questions and discussion help people become closer, excite them, and promote agreement instead of arguments.

And then the warmth of unity will envelop them, common feelings, around which they will begin to unite. It will take 20 to 30 minutes, and they will be imbued with a new spirit, as if their frequencies match. This will be the first example for them of what can be found in unity.

This force is in Nature, but you need to connect to feel it, and then it will correct everyone’s flaws and problems in all areas of  their lives.

How? This is the next lesson …
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/22/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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In the News (from The University of North Carolina): “’We can make ourselves happy through simple pleasures, but those ‘empty calories’ don’t help us broaden our awareness or build our capacity in ways that benefit us physically. At the cellular level, our bodies appear to respond better to a different kind of well-being, one based on a sense of connectedness and purpose,” according to new research led by Barbara L. Fredrickson, Kenan Distinguished Professor of psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“The sense of well-being derived from ‘a noble purpose’ may provide cellular health benefits, whereas ‘simple self-gratification’ may have negative effects, despite an overall perceived sense of happiness, researchers found. …

“’Philosophers have long distinguished two basic forms of well-being: a ‘hedonic’ [hee-DON-ic] [egoistic] form representing an individual’s pleasurable experiences, and a deeper ‘eudaimonic,’ [u-DY-moh-nick] [altruistic] form that results from striving toward meaning and a noble purpose beyond simple self-gratification,’ wrote Fredrickson and her colleagues.

“Collaborating with a team from the University of California at Los Angeles  led by Steven W. Cole, professor of medicine, psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Fredrickson and her colleagues looked at the biological influence of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being through the human genome. They were interested in the pattern of gene expression within people’s immune cells.

“Past work by Cole and colleagues had discovered a systematic shift in gene expression associated with chronic stress, a shift ‘characterized by increased expression of genes involved in inflammation’ that are implicated in a wide variety of human ills, including arthritis and heart disease, and “decreased expression of genes involved in … antiviral responses,” the study noted.

“It’s the difference, for example, between enjoying a good meal and feeling connected to a larger community through a service project, she said. Both give us a sense of happiness, but each is experienced very differently in the body’s cells. …

“But if all happiness is created equal, and equally opposite to ill-being, then patterns of gene expression should be the same regardless of hedonic or eudaimonic well-being. Not so, found the researchers.

“Eudaimonic well-being was, indeed, associated with a significant decrease in the stress-related CTRA gene expression profile. In contrast, hedonic well-being was associated with a significant increase in the CTRA profile. Their genomics-based analyses, the authors reported, reveal the hidden costs of purely hedonic well-being.

“Fredrickson found the results initially surprising, because study participants themselves reported overall feelings of well-being. One possibility, she suggested, is that people who experience more hedonic than eudaimonic well-being consume the emotional equivalent of empty calories. ‘Their daily activities provide short-term happiness yet result in negative physical consequences long-term,’ she said.”

My Comment: Nature is unified, and seeking to reach its wholeness is beneficial for all the systems, physical and spiritual, for an individual and the world. The higher (spiritual) degree a person applies effort to bring nature to unity, the stronger is its affect on the lower (physical) degrees.
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Question: You said that it is necessary to invest a small amount of effort to feel my joy in another. What does “a small amount of effort” mean?

Answer: Describe to yourself a state like this, that you now find yourself with feelings and thoughts about another and want to see him joyful, happy, and fulfilled. And now think about what you could do to attain this. This will bring you to the possibility of acting in some way for the sake of a friend.

You need to learn what makes him happy, exactly what he needs, and in this way you combine his desire to yours, and his desire becomes yours. That is to say you have already acquired another part of your soul.
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From the Conventions in Krasnoyarsk 6/16/13, Lesson 5

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Opinion (Jens Weidmann, head of Deutsche Bundesbank): “A broad deepening of fiscal integration leading toward a ‘fiscal union’ in the euro zone requires deeper public support than currently exists both inside and outside Germany, European Central Bank Governing Council member Jens Weidmann said Monday [June 17].

“Speaking at a reception sponsored by the local chamber of commerce, Mr. Weidmann urged a ‘realistic’ approach such as deepening of the fiscal policies in the single currency zone. He said that support among the broader public for such a move in the face of the euro zone crisis at present is seen ‘neither in Germany nor in partner countries.’ Mr. Weidmann is also head of the Deutsche Bundesbank.”

“Elsewhere in Europe, Bundesbank chief and ECB official Jens Weidmann claimed that there was nothing more the central bank could do to help solve the region’s crisis while speaking in Paris. He said the ECB Governing Council has agreed that monetary policy cannot solve the crisis and that the bank has already gone to great lengths to try to mitigate the damage. Now, Weidmann said, it is up to individual governments to make the necessary structural reforms.” Source: International Business Times

My Comment: Gradually life will force us to accept the need for full integration as a mandatory condition to overcome the crisis. Nature will compel humanity to unite. We are weak and dependent on it. So, it is better to become wiser in advance and recognize that salvation and prosperity are in unification.

We must proceed with the full change of the structure of civilization: the satisfaction of all basic needs and not more and all our other opportunities to be directed only to the creation of a single organism of unified civilization.
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Question: During the discussion circles a sensation of unity, of identity, is created among the people. How important is it here, specifically, for the person to understand that this is happening to him now?

Answer: The person doesn’t need to do anything at first. We arrange workshops with very different people like those who are opposites, who hate each other and disagree. They are completely different people in mentality, nationality, age, profession and so on, gathered into the circles.

Very gradually, over the course of the first half hour, surprisingly, they begin to connect internally, to understand each other, to complement each other and they don’t interrupt each other and don’t argue in any way. They try to find a common point of view, to rise above themselves. Then, suddenly, something in common begins to form between them, an agreement that shines on them with some kind of inner light, an inner energy. This is specifically what a person lacks today.

Our world now is entering into a state like this. Around us, nature is revealing more and more of its integrality, its mutual cooperation that fills all of its parts, and we, humanity, are like a cancerous tumor. We don’t want to be integrally linked between us and with nature itself.

Through attaining the most minimal integrality in a group, we become like the nature that surrounds us (except for humanity) and begin to feel a kind of radiation from it, some kind of influence, and this feeling of receiving a unique energy makes the world more resonant, more subtle and fine. This is so soothing, relaxing, and balancing for a person that he doesn’t want to be separated from it.

A sensation of wisdom descends upon him because he is found in balance with nature, meaning with the entire universe. He begins to feel that there are special goals in a state like this and that through these states it is possible to go out as if through some kind of matrix to the next level of existence. Apparently, a group in which this is found is, in fact, not a group, but a unique body, a schema, an instrument, with whose help one can organize his ascent above this world.

From a physical point of view, he might have everything: a house, a family, salary and the like. However, this sensation of “suspension in the air” above our world fills him with meaning. This gives him rest from everything that he usually feels in this world. This is very important to people. For this, they would be ready to give everything if only to attain such a state.

Therefore, from my personal experience, I would claim that within an hour to an hour and a half of being in a workshop, a person reaches this kind of state. He becomes completely different.

Taking part in integral workshops are: Arabs, Jews, Druze, the old, the young, right wingers, left wingers, fascists, and communists. It doesn’t matter who or how. They sit around a roundtable as enemies that don’t usually complement each other and within an hour they transform into comrades. An absolutely incredible activity has taken place!

Afterward, they will travel to visit each other, meet, wanting to feel that feeling that they had found again, and precisely in contrast to that initial sense of opposition, they feel the new state more prominently and clearly.
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From KabTV’s “Through Time” 3/17/13

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Question: With what should I associate myself: The desire to unite everyone or to become united?

Answer: First of all, we associate ourselves with the desire to become united. Certainly! We go from the center to the periphery.

I have to tell myself that I am the center of the world, the center of the group. This is stated in the articles of Rabash. That is, the action is mine, but I do not know the actions of others. That is why I have to state that everything depends on me, and if I correct myself, by this I correct the whole world. And if I lead it in one direction or another, then it depends on me how it will change.

So first of all, it is my uniting all of them, and then my desiring to join them. That is, my goal is the functioning ego. We do not kill it, do not run away from it, but rise above it. By “rising” we mean that we control it. This is what a person has and nothing else.
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From the Preparation to the Convention in Krasnoyarsk 6/13/13

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Question: When the integral network is fully connected and all are 100% included in each other, when it has the support of a higher level of nature, then nobody can influence it negatively. But we are talking about a system. How can there be a complex system that nobody can influence externally?

Answer: Everything depends on the quantity and quality of the people who are linked in integral unity. We are not talking about a forceful, destructive influence or about the physical annihilation of the body that happens during a war, for example, that is something else. We are talking about ideology, about an inner connection between us. In this case, all external influences that aren’t integral cannot influence us. They can only help our integration into a stronger, higher society.

For example, if birds or fish are joined together they can defend themselves from predators. Why won’t any predator attack a school of fish that moves as a unit? How can this be? Is the predator afraid of them? Paradoxically they pass him by or he passes them by, and nothing happens. Try to examine the phenomenon and connect it to human society. I think that there are many historical facts about this subject.

Unity causes the appearance of a new, higher power, and I would say that people who are united even have a particular luck that maintains, helps, and heals them. This is how it’s arranged by nature.

But an aspiration towards unity in every circumstance exists only between us humans, the egoists, and therefore it’s carried out in a very painful way. We are constantly colliding, “exploding” like stars, connecting and dispersing again and again. Ultimately, whether we want it or not, we are creating around us or within us a more and more compact system of connection.

We see that the world has become enormous. All of humanity has scattered throughout the world, and on the other hand, it aspires to connection. Therefore it doesn’t matter how much people want to get away from each other, this is the opposite side of unity among them. This will lead us towards unity anyway. And this is a paradox!

Question: But we have often gotten together to do something bad. What leads to that type of unity?

Answer: There exist two levels of unity: virtual, integral, and nationalistic, individual. Therefore if we explore each case on a nationalistic level, we need to describe how this comes to be reflected on an integral level.

If on a nationalistic level there are clashes between us and we are found in difficult situations of conflict, this is not saying that the integral level is damaged. On the contrary, it could be that this proves its necessity. For example, we come to blows. What is the benefit? And if we unite, perhaps we will attain mutual benefit from this.

That is, what we see with our eyes is not the whole picture. You see, there is evolution and the laws of nature according to which we develop; they lead us towards unity, even though this is to happiness “by the rod.”

Question: So then is it better for us to unite for something bad than to be divided, but not by good deeds?

Answer: The person measures his short life according to its happy parts, and if he speaks about the problems, as is understood they are rejected. Come, let’s think about how to reach a good state through a good condition.
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From KabTV’s  “Wisdom of Crowds” 5/14/13

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